Air Astana CEO receives special recognition at Airline Strategy Awards

Air Astana CEO, Peter Foster, has received special recognition at this year’s Airline Strategy Awards ceremony in London, with the presentation of the Airline Business awards.

The special award recognises industry leaders seen to have made a lasting strategic contribution to the air transport business and demonstrated strong leadership over an extended period.

Unlike other Airline Strategy Awards, the final decision on the recipient of the Airline Business Award rests entirely with the magazine’s editorial team.

Foster became the president and CEO of Air Astana in May 2005, three years after the airline’s launch as Kazakhstan’s new national carrier with US$17 million in shareholder funding as its initial and sole investment. The airline publicly listed earlier this year on the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange, Astana International Exchange, and London Stock Exchange for a market capitalization at listing of US$847 million.

Under Foster, the airline delivered outstanding returns and became the largest and most admired airline in Eurasia. It also established a world class airline brand for Kazakhstan and is the driving force of aviation development in one of the fastest growing regions for air travel in the world.

Foster and his management team realized early on the potential not only of point-to-point traffic, but also of the development of hubs from Almaty and Astana to and from Central Asia and the Caucasus onto a longer-haul network to China and East Asia, the Gulf, India, Turkey and Western Europe. Air Astana could apply the “extended home market” concept, successfully developed by some leading Asian and Gulf carriers, to its own business.

The team also recognised the need to strategically adapt to liberalization of markets and growing democratisation of air travel. A team of low-cost specialist managers established FlyArystan in 2019 as a low-cost brand. It has since become the fastest-growing airline in the world over the past five years.